Description
Professor Smith uses Nubia as a case observe to explore the character of ethnic identity. Up to date analysis means that ethnic boundaries are permeable, and that ethnic identities are overlapping. That is in particular true when cultures come into direct contact, as with the Egyptian conquest of Nubia in the second one millennium BC.
By the use of the tools of anthropology, Smith examines the Ancient Egyptian construction of ethnic identities with its stark contrast between civilized Egyptians and barbaric foreigners – people who made up the ‘Wretched Kush’ of the title.